Saturday, May 19, 2012

Review: Wreck-Age minis

Pictured below are the first batch of Wreck-Age minis:

Click for much larger look

Now, I got these as part of my signing up to their kickstarter, so they didn't come packaged. That said, I got the earlier kickstarter exclusive mini in a nice clamshell:



When I got this guy I was honestly really surprised by the quality of packaging, especially for such a limited mini. It's also good to see there's nothing shorted on quality, something Matt and Anton of Hyacinth Games seem to be very focused on.

The minis themselves are gorgeous and packed with details, like they just stepped out of Fallout or Mad Max. If you look at the pics below you'll see little details such as stitches on their clothes and the carefully thought out layers of re-purposed gear they're wearing:



I've heard it said you can judge a mini line by the quality of its female sculpts, and Wreck-Age does not dissapoint. No over sexualisation (or any, really), and great proportions and a styling that fits with the theme and style rather than just being 'the girl mini' that often gets thrown in by some lines.
Hyacinth also seem to be making a 50/50 split between male and female figs at the moment, which very few companies do but is a growing trend [/tangent].


(Note: this guy was a limited edition mini for Adepticon 2012, so not a general release - the kickstarter exclusive is this guy with a riot shield. You shoulda backed the Kickstarter!)

 The models pictured above are exactly as they arrived to me - no clean up of flash or mould lines at all - straight out of the envelope onto the table. The only issue I have is with the slotta tab, namely that it's too deep for the bases:


An easily fixed issue, but a bit annoying. Now, the folks at Hyacinth Games were kind enough to send me enough bases of both the shown GW style and the lipped Privateer type, so perhaps that could be an issue. Yes, I could get up and check, but I'm in another room now and it doesn't bother me that much frankly.

Edit 24/5: Matt put in the comments below that the next batches will have smaller tabs, so this issue is a non-issue (perils of being an early adopter ;p)

Scale shot with other minis, click to embiggen:

L to R: Hasslefree, Sedition Wars, Wreck-Age, Infinity, G.O.T., Wreck-Age, EM4, GW

The best scale matches were with Hasslefree and Sedition Wars (whose ranges have a great variety of builds), with G.O.T. a close third. The EM4 Miniatures figure is fine height wise, but misses out with its more 'heroic' proportions. That said they'd work fine on the tabletop or mixed in together in a display.
The Infinity figure has the same proportions, but they are noticably taller, moreso than the slightly taller GOT. The Orc trooper is on the tall side, but most of the Infinity figs are noticably taller.
GW has GW proportions, so is obviously not a fit.

I'm really looking forward to seeing more of the range (especially that female No-Ghost), and will certainly post more about them when I get them.

All the miniatures above are available now, except the two exclusives obviously ;)